Pearson (s PSO) — the big kahuna of ed tech — has snapped up another startup. The company on Monday said it had purchased Learning Catalytics, a company founded at Harvard University by a trio of academics.

Like services from Top Hat Monocle, Socrative and other student response systems, Learning Catalytics turns students’ laptops, smartphones and iPads into classroom engagement tools. K-12 teachers and college professors can use Learning Catalytics to ask students questions during class and gauge their mastery of the material.

But Paul Corey, Pearson’s higher education president of science, business and technology, said a few key features distinguish Learning Catalytics: it enables teachers to ask all kinds of questions (not just multiple choice) and it gives teachers a quick graphical display of student responses.

Also, it doesn’t just turn students’ otherwise distracting devices into productive tools, it can promote more offline interaction between students. For example…

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